The Sisters
by phyca
Summary: A simple imagining of what might have happened after the show ended (but ignoring the movie).


Reggie never told her mother about the girl at the cemetery, the same girl she'd seen so many times since George died. Though they did not look alike, there was a sullenness in the way the girl held herself that reminded Reggie of her sister, a posturing she tried so hard to replicate as though that would bring her sister back.

Eventually, this occasional visitor began to take greater importance in Reggie's life. She missed her sister and she needed her sister, and now she began to think of this girl as her sister's spirit on earth. Nothing else had brought her back, not the toilet seat tree, not the goth clothing.

She only smiled at the girl that morning. She wished later that she could have run to her, asked her if she was really George. But after a whole night on George's grave, just seeing the spirit of her sister seemed cathartic enough. She saw her again a few more times that year, once on the other side of the street trying too hard to pretend she had not noticed Reggie, and once at a movie – George snuck out quickly after being spotted, and once in her car, a fancy red thing, as she drove slowly past on Reggie's birthday, coincidentally making Reggie's not-yet-wished-for birthday wish come true.

The next year, she did not bring up the subject of the Halloween graveside visit. When her mother brought it up, she said she'd rather not. In truth, she wanted to be there without Joy so that perhaps George would talk to her, rather than just give her a handful of Halloween candy. She slipped out around 4 the morning of November 1 with a blanket and a book from George's collection. She tried to read it, but found her mind wandering to the subject of why George was in another body and why she would never come around again, why she always ran. This was what she was prepared to ask should her sister return.

Sure enough, just as the sky began to lighten in anticipation of the sun's arrival, a figure came to the top of the hill. But seeing Reggie there, already sitting up, it did not come any closer. They stared at one another for the better part of a minute, but when Reggie stood up, the figure turned around and walked away. Reggie ran, but by the time she reached the top of the hill, the person had vanished. She did not see her at all the next year.

George, for her part, was still living with Daisy, surprisingly enough. The house had not yet been claimed and the mere fact that someone seemed to be occupying it was enough to keep the neighbors from wandering. No relatives or friends came looking for the old lady, now safely tucked away in her former garden. Mason came and went out of Daisy's life, an unexpected development that annoyed Rube and George in very different ways. He was at least a character, but she could do without his British underpants and the trail of debris that followed in his wake. She was not sure how Daisy managed to put up with it.

A reap soon after seeing her sister on Halloween brought her into contact with the boy reaper again. She wasn't given to noticing small children, but something about his gruff demeanor and self-sufficiency struck her. He did not particularly want to do anything but find a dry place in a police-free park to spend the night, but she promised him all the warm food he could eat and a bubble bath, no strings. With reluctance and curiosity, he accepted. And then he never left.

One would think there would be hijinks galore with a young child joining their ranks, but things stayed mellow. Daisy turned up her nose at him and complained that he was just another Mason in training. Mason was delighted to have a prodigy. George did what she could to limit the time the boys spent together. And Joey, for his part, was all too eager to ignore them all and spend most of his time out of doors on his skateboard, reaping his daily assignment and waiting for it all to end.

Rube did not take kindly to the arrangement. "He is not one of us. He is got his own branch and his own head reaper to worry about him. You keep your nose out of other reapers business, Peanut. Keep to yourself."

"Not gonna buy it, Boss Man. The boy stays till he leaves. For the first time in his death, he is not hungry or cold or alone. You got a problem with that, then relocate me. Or him. Or tell the big boss it's time to let us move on."

Seeing her sister that second time at the graveyard made George more nostalgic than ever before and more repentant. Her sister seemed to recognize her and was reaching out for her. George needed to avoid this for the sake of retaining her memories, which strangely gave her comfort. Who would have thought that what she forsook in life would be so precious to her now?

But the next year, in 2005, when she again stupidly and knowingly entered her graveyard and headed to her tombstone and to the bits of her body buried beneath it, she saw her sister and walked towards her. "Hey," she said in a way-too-George manner.

"Hey," said Reggie, tilting her head curiously.

"Why are you always here on November 1st?" asked George. She looked down at the tombstone, channeling her best Millie impersonation. "Did you know that girl?"

"She was my sister," said Reggie, confused.

"Sorry."

"It's ok. I… I know she is still here. Watching over me. You know?"

"Yeah, I bet she is. Big sister watching out for little sister. I can see that."

"She didn't actually like me when she was alive. But I think she feels regretful now. I think that's why she keeps coming back."

"Maybe. I can understand that. I had a sister once," said George, feeling the powers that be starting to work their klepto fingers into her brain. "A little sister. She was a pain, always getting into my stuff, always causing me grief. But I miss her now. It's like they always say, you never know what you have until it's gone. Well, I should get going. I hope your sister sticks around for you. Later, kid."

Reggie watched as the girl turned away and then suddenly remembered the novel she'd brought again. "George!" she called out, her heart jumping into her throat when the girl actually responded. George-but-not-George looked shaken that she'd actually fallen for that, and tried to act as if she were responding to the shout, but not the name. But one look at her sister and she knew she couldn't pretend otherwise.

"Fuck it, powers. You will just have to take some memories. And I'll just have to make new ones."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Oh. I brought you something, it was yours. I can bring you more if you like."

George took the book in her hands and turned it over a few times. "Thanks. I need to go."

"It's you though, isn't it?"

George did not respond with more than a half smile before leaving.

They would repeat this scene for the next three years. Something about that one day made it easier to get through the other 364 without spying on her family. Still, it was not enough. The powers that be knew, of course, and it was only a matter of time before word would get to Rube.

"I just don't understand you sometimes, Georgia. How many years have I been stressing that you avoid your family?" He sighed. "It doesn't matter now. You are being reassigned. Effective immediately."

"What? No way! That's bullshit! I am not going."

"Can't change what's already been decided. You are off to Chicago this afternoon. I am not supposed to let you out of my sight."

"But my sister… she'll wonder where I am."

"And that's how it's supposed to be. You just fucked things up a little. And now the big bosses have decided to try to undo what you've done."

"Fuck that," said George storming out of Der Waffelhaus.

"Why am I cursed with such pigheaded reapers?" bemoaned Rube as he grabbed his jacket and ran after his rogue reaper. This was the second reaper he'd lost in this year alone, as though the bosses were doing an audit and finally realized his reapers were pushing and exceeding their limits. Even though Daisy had made significant progress under his command, no longer conning the living for money, she had been relocated to Oklahoma, a move she was less than thrilled about, after her affair with Mason came to light. Why they couldn't have shipped the drug-addled Brit to a state full of corn stalks, he did not know. Now he was losing his best and favorite reaper because she was too weak to pull away from her living family and accept her fellow reapers as an ersatz family.

Joey was particularly saddened, and even Rube couldn't stand by as the boy packed a few belongings in a duffel and silently made his way to the door. "Hey kid," he said, but when the boy turned around he found himself at a loss. He certainly couldn't take such a kid into his own home, even if the boy was only a boy in appearance. He'd been dead for 8 years now, making him just about 18. "Come see me tomorrow at Der Waffelhaus – I might be able to hook you up with a place to live." He was thinking of Martha, the nurse at the assisted living facility. She had been lamenting never having had a child, after Rube's daughter died. Perhaps they could make things work. For now, though, Rube was about to lose another child, much to his dismay.

He drove her to the airport. She wouldn't talk to him, just pouted and stared out the window. At the entrance to the security checkpoint, they were met by the Chicago representative of Outside Influences. A gruff woman named Collette, who instantly reminded Rube of Roxie, and therefore garnered all his support. "Watch out for this one," he said, his demeanor softer than his words. "She'll give you a run for your money. But she knows her job. She will not disappoint in the long run." Georgia looked up at him, trying to read his expression to see if this was meant to be complimentary.

"Hey Peanut, watch yourself. And keep your nose out of trouble. And if you meet Joel Rzanov, give him my regards." He felt his throat constrict and squeezed her shoulder, then ruffled her hair to put on annoyed look on her sullen face. "I'll miss you, kid." She smiled and looked at her feet.

"I'll miss you too, Rube."

She spent three years in Chicago with a brand-new cast of misfits. She did not get along with them all, but she begrudgingly learned to love them as she had her Seattle reapers. And she noticed something else… this wasn't a true demotion. In fact, it wasn't a demotion at all. She realized she was being groomed for something bigger.

It was true that she was the only reaper she knew who had seen the gravelings before she had died. Her fate had been sealed even then. And now it was apparent that she had a skill at reaping few others had. It came to her with ease. Collette was obviously a busy woman herself, and soon after her arrival in Chicago, George found herself taking over reaping meetings. In her third and last year, Collette began to train her in handing out reaping assignments. She was put in charge of greeting a new reaper, a 40 year old man who had been out flattening pennies on the train tracks when a snake suddenly came out of nowhere (damn gravelings) and he fell to the tracks, knocking himself unconscious and unaware that the 10:58 was running right on time.

She kept in touch with Daisy and was truly happy for her to learn she was returned to Seattle. But then, shortly after her return, Mason was gone. For good. Up to the perfect high in the sky. Daisy was distraught and George was unsettled by the emotion. Plus, she found that she missed Mason. From time to time, she also sent letters to her sister. She knew deep down that none of them would make it, and that part of her memories would disappear, but she did it anyway. She began to write down every single memory that came to her about her family, writing them in her tight cursive. But inevitably, the pages would disappear or, more often as the gravelings were the destroyers, the pages would meet an unfortunate end, such as spontaneously combusting, drowning in the toilet, and once, getting caught in a nonexistent breeze and landing in her office shredder just as the teeth began to grind without being turned on. Every time, she would curse the forces at work and shoo the gravelings away.

When she too returned to Seattle, without escort this time, she was greeted by the remnants of her old crew. Rube, Roxie, and Daisy were all there. The new woman was there too, Genie, a 74 year old woman who looked like a grandmother and cursed like a sailor. "Shit, this is the scraggly piece of ass you've been sniffling about the last three years?" She turned to George and immediately sensed a kindred spirit. "You know what kind of pussies these people are without you?" George smirked. And then, settled back in the big yellow house with Daisy, she set out to find her sister.

Reggie was 18. It had been three years since she'd last seen her sister. The first no show on November 1st sent her into a depression deeper than when her sister had actually died. She did not speak to her mother or even look her in the eye for a month. She quit going to school. She focused instead on a new taxidermy project, a hobby she'd given up a couple years before. She began to write bad poetry and published them on a blog called toilet_seat_stories.

And then, as she held her yearly vigil, her sister showed up. Three years had passed and yet there was no anger, no bitterness remained. "George," she said quietly, her voice caught in her throat, scared suddenly that saying her sister's name out loud would make her disappear. "

"Yeah, kid, it's me."

"Where have you been?" asked Reggie, running to her sister and embracing her.

"Chicago of all places."

"Why?"

"Why not? I was reassigned actually."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't have a choice in where I am or what I do."

"What does that mean?"

"I reap. I reap souls."

She felt her memories being wrenched from her head. "I shouldn't speak. I … I …" The words were gone. For a moment, she forgot who she was speaking to. "I've got to go. Take care of mom for me, ok?"

She squeezed her sister's hand. "I miss you. I wish things could be the way they were before I died, but they can't. I'll try to be here next year."

And with that she was gone. Her sister stood there, strangely satisfied though saddened at her sister's departure. She needed her. Mom wasn't enough. Dad was absent at best. Her dog had died years ago and they'd never gotten a new one. She turned to sculpture, using clay to make gruesome sculptures of twisted bodies dying horrific deaths. It brought her comfort.

Joy did not understand. Her daughter had already gone through this phase years ago after George had passed away. Now she had reverted and doubly so. She wouldn't respond. Joy put her back in counseling, but the counselor finally felt bad for taking her money and getting nothing out of Reggie. Joy told her once that she was pretending to be George, but was doing a bad job of it. "At least to George it came naturally, for you it's obviously a ruse." Reggie responded by stomping off to her room.

By the next year, things had resolved. Reggie was back in school, was talking to her friends and her mother again, and secretly was planning for the next year. She'd even seen George down at Pike Place, just before a woman died. She was beginning to make a connection, which she planned to ask George about next time she saw her.

This year, 2009, she asked her mother if they could go visit George's grave.

They brought a blanket and extra Halloween candy and a bunch of flowers for Georgia's grave. Her mother told a story about going to their rental house on the lake when Reggie was a baby, and Reggie asked if they could visit it again so that she could see the carving George had made on the dock. Her mother said maybe.

It was just the two of them now. Dad had taken a job in Missouri and only called once a month and on birthdays and Christmas. He always invited Reggie out to see him, but she couldn't think of a worse way to spend her holidays, so she always turned him down. Her mother had dated their real estate agent for a while, and then another man she'd met at the farmer's market, but nothing seemed to work. They both felt broken by George's death, even though they'd never dreamed her absence would effect them much. But here they were, sitting under the moon, Reggie resting her head in her mother's lap while Joy brushed her fingers through her daughter's hair and thought of the other daughter she'd lost. Where would they be now had she lived? Why had she forced her to take that job and why hadn't she said something nicer to her when they parted that day? Those thoughts would always haunt her, no matter how much therapy she had.

The next morning, she met Reggie's excited face peering into her own. "I saw her Mom. I did not know if I should tell you this, but I see her. Every Halloween night she comes here. I've spoken to her."

"Shut up. Quit speaking like that. It's not right. I don't want to hear. It's impossible."

"No, Mom, she was here this morning. I spoke to her. She is in Seattle. She is still George inside, she just looks different."

"You are going into therapy. Today. I am calling Dr. Conner. And maybe checking in with a hospital. You need help. It's been five years since she died. It's time to accept it, Reggie," said Joy, clasping her hands around her daughters arm tightly. "It's a fantasy. You need to let go. She is gone."

Reggie clenched her jaw. "She is here. She is real." She shook out of her mother's grasp and walked away. When she returned home, she wouldn't speak about what had happened.

Her mother was making a ham sandwich when Reggie walked in. "You are going to the doctor tomorrow. Dr. Connor. And he is going to evaluate you. You haven't been the same since George died. I haven't seen to your mental health. It's time I started acting like your mom."

"I am not going to a doctor and if you make me, I will not be here in the morning."

"You will, young lady," said Joy, waving a mayonnaise covered knife in her daughter's direction. "You will and you will comply and you will get better. You will accept that George is gone if it's the last thing I make you do."

Her mother crumbled inside herself. She slammed the knife on the counter. Bits of mayonnaise flew in the air and a splotch hit Reggie on the arm. Joy began to sob.

"Mom?" asked Reggie, forsaking her bitter attitude. "Are you ok?" She tentatively moved closer to her mother and ducked her head down to find her mother's eyes.

"I can't believe I said that. I said that to your sister, 'if it's the last thing I do.' And then it was. The last thing I ever did. I shouldn't have made her take that damn temp job. If I'd just let her sleep and waste her life, she'd at least still be alive. And I would still have two daughters. Two beautiful daughters."

"I am sorry, Mom." That was all Reggie could say. They did not speak of the matter again.

When Reggie ran into her sister again, at a hospital this time. "George!"

George turned. "Reggie. I am not supposed to talk to you, remember?"

"I know. I just, I can't pass you without saying hi. I miss you."

"Miss you too." George turned tail and ran.

For the next ten years, they continued to meet only on Halloween nights. George continued to work at Happy Time for a few years, but eventually Delores noticed that she had not aged and George sadly had to take her leave. All those years that Delores had stood by her, the time that she had bailed her out of jail, the time she'd taken her in when she had nowhere to sleep and did not like Daisy yet.

But now she had settled into her afterlife. She loved Daisy like a sister, but not like she loved Reggie. She loved Delores like the mother she wished she'd had and was annoyed by her just as Joy annoyed her. Rube was her surrogate father. Joey was the little brother she'd never had.

She was with him on that fateful day when he passed on. He had a gig in Ballard, and she was headed up that way for a job interview, so she agreed to give him a ride. She wanted to see what he did anyway, for the thought of a child reaper reaping animals resonated with her. She wondered who she would oversee one day. Would it be reapers like herself? Child reapers? Old age reapers? She did not know, but she felt the need to explore the reaping world. Joey worked in the same division as she did, just in the animal world. He had to reap the soul of a Guinea pig named Pickles who eventually chewed on an electrical wire. And then the lights came. Lights different from what he saw when the animals moved on. He saw instead a skate park and a dozen kids his age riding up and down the ramps with abandon. A smile grew on his face. He knew. George knew. She smiled back at him and told him to go on. And when he was gone, she wiped a tear from her eye and skipped her job interview. Fuck it, she thought. Life - and death - were far more precious. She would savor every moment of it. At least for that day.

When she returned to her post, a young woman greeted her. "You must be George," she said, putting out her hand. George looked at it skeptically but finally decided to shake. "We have some papers we need you to fill out."

"Papers?"

"Well, we don't have out promotions all willy-nilly. Just because we are dead does not mean we are excluded from leaving paper trails."

"Promotion?"

"Yes. Surely you know that you are next in line for head reaper."

"But I don't want a promotion. I don't want any responsibilities beyond my one reap a day."

"You did so well in Chicago though that the people upstairs have taken notice of you. Besides, one day Rube will move on, and we need someone capable and knowledgeable of the area to step in."

"What if I don't want Rube to 'move on'? What if I am happy with him being right where he is? And what if I am happy where I am?"

"I am sorry dear, I am just the messenger. And you know what they say about messengers."

"Fine. Whatever." They took a seat at Der Waffelhaus and an idea came to George. "So what kind of perks do I get?"

"Perks?"

"Yeah, like, do I get a lot of money? Or a lighter work load? A fancy apartment? What do I get from the job?"

"The satisfaction of a job well done."

"That's fucking lame. I will not sign those papers until I get some… benefits."

"I am sorry but that's not how things work."

"How about you just pass on a little message from me, and I will not sign those papers till next week when you get back to me with an answer."

"I am not sure…"

"Tell them that I will not take the job unless they give me my memories back. All of them. And no more reaching in a stealing them. I'll sign a paper to protect my memories and I'll sign a paper to be the next head reaper. Hell, you get them to agree to my side of the deal and I'll be death's bitch for a fucking century. How's that for bargaining?" She got up from the table.

"I am sorry, George, but it doesn't work that way."

"Well, then someone's gonna have to bend the rules, 'cause I don't work _that_ way," she said, putting her finger on the papers in emphasis.

A week later, the woman returned. "They have agreed to your request, and they understand why it is you wish for your memories, but they ask that you act wisely. And they warn you that if you continue to interact with your sister, someone's memories will have to go to protect the delicate balance between the living and the dead."

"No go. Protect me, protect my sister. Back to the table."

Another week past and the woman again returned. "It is done. You and your sister are protected. In return, they will contract you to 100 years guaranteed service, with the clause that after the hundred years have passed, if they still need you, they will keep you for as long as they need you."

"Deal."

It was signed. Rube took her under his wing in a new way. She learned the comings and goings of her trade. And best of all, she had her sister again.

When Rube finally passed on, George was ready to step into his shoes. She was there to greet all of her future reapers. She embraced Daisy just moments before she walked into a ball of light from whence came the distant sound of applause. She shook Roxie's hand as she passed on to another position out in Phoenix. She was all that was left of her original group and it saddened her.

She watched her sister grow older, and then just simply grow old. She married and had a little boy, though George never did play with fate to meet them.

But what was hardest of all as time passed on, was watching the fallout of her decision. She'd been warned, but somewhere in her desire to become reconnected with her sister, she blocked it out. Someone's memories would have to go for her to keep hers. And someone's did go. Joy began to fade into the apparent clutches of Alzheimer's. The first things to go, which her psychiatrist pinned on trauma, were her memories of her eldest child. And then she forgot about her younger daughter. And then her marriage. And her adulthood. And finally, her childhood disappeared too, and there was nothing left of her but a shell. Penny, still at the nursing home, gave her the call that it was time, and she rushed there to spend a final few moments with her mother who no longer even recognized her. Penny held her when it was over. "Rube made a similar deal, but he did not take it far enough. He wanted to keep up with his daughter and not lose his memories of her, but she lost out on the deal. You got your sister, but you had to lose your mother. I am so sorry, sweetie."

George had another 60 years to go, though, and it was she who held her sister as she took her final breath. She watched all of her other reapers come and then go. She was always left behind. There was no one left but herself, really. It was no longer so wonderful being dead like her.


End file.
